She's Becoming Gold ...

What do I mean by that?

In the mid-1990s, I worked at a large bank as the lowest person the the totem pole. I had health insurance, though ... One of my co-workers was having a tough time in a bad marriage, but she was working her way through it with elegance and grace. I could she she was gaining respect for herself, and setting boundaries for her skunk of a spouse.

I felt like I was witnessing the formation of a true masterpiece : Her.

I don't know how her story ended, or where she is now. One day, I gave her a cassette tape with Marc Cohen's song on it, "She's Becoming Gold." My co-worker was the personification of this song for me.

Another example of "She's Becoming Gold" is Janie Crawford in Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Or see Novelguide for a basic synopsis of the book.

Their Eyes is Janie's story and how her relationships with other people improved her relationship with herself. She had three husbands in her lifetime, each of them very different.

• The first husband treated her well enough, but there was no love. She wanted more from life, and left him and his 60 acres.
• The second gave her everything she could have wanted. But he treated her like a trophy wife and never really bother to get to know her.
• The third was a younger man named Teacake. Theirs was a sweet romance. Teacake loved Janie for herself.
  

WARNING : If you think you might want to read this book, and don't want the surprise ending ruined, STOP READING THIS POST NOW.

I remember reading the final chapters and really struggling with the part of the story where Janie had to kill Teacake in self-defense. They had been so happy together, so good together ... Why would Ms. Hurston ruin that happiness? After a hurricane, Teacake had been bitten by a rabid dog and went crazy with rabies. He would have killed Janie in his madness ... but by then in her lifetime, Janie had come to love herself enough to take care of herself. She did what she had to do to go on living. She had to ... There was no saving Teacake by then.

Becoming Gold means she was becoming solid, precious and worthy--a WHOLE person. She had found what made her happiest and fulfilled. She found a sweetie who "bought her chairs." Most of all, she knew herself, and what made her happiest.

• Janie: "It's uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves" (183).

• Phoeby was changed by hearing her story, too. Phoeby says, "Ah done growed ten feet higher from jus' listenin' tuh you, Janie. Ah ain't satisfied wid mahself no mo'" (183).

• Finally, Pheoby hugs Janie and goes home. Janie, left alone, thinks about her past and realizes, "Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see" (184).

Isn't that a lovely image to end on? ;-)